The present disclosure and embodiments relate to imaging devices such as printers, including multi-function printers (MFP). More particularly, the disclosure relates to integrating a scanning device into the paper path of a printing device such that the printer/scanner combination utilizes a shared paper path yielding a smaller more reliable device.
A disadvantage of the prior art systems is that they are large and heavy owing some heft to the additional components, e.g. motors, gears, etc. that accompany having multiple paper paths. These additional components increase the complexity of the system. Potentially the system's reliability is reduced by having more components susceptible to failure.
There is thus, a need to provide imaging systems with reduced complexity, size, and weight by providing a single shared paper path utilized by both the printing and scanning operations and to provide systems in which a scanned image can be selectively used to determine nonuniformity problems to obtain color consistency within a page. Further advantages of the present embodiments will become apparent as the following description proceeds, and the features characterizing the embodiments will be pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this specification.